Software Engineer 1 Applied AI Engineer

TS/SCI - Polygraph required

20-001 SWE1 Applied AI Engineer

Description: We're looking for an Applied AI Engineer who's excited about pushing the boundaries of AI in cybersecurity. This role is for someone who experiments with cutting-edge models, builds proof-of-concepts in their spare time, and sees every workflow challenge as an opportunity to apply AI in creative ways. You'll be supporting cyber operations teams, working directly with security professionals to ideate and deploy AI solutions that enhance their daily workflows. AI is evolving rapidly—this isn't about following established playbooks, it's about exploring new territory, staying current, and building solutions that don't exist yet.

Responsibilities:

• Rapidly prototype AI-powered tools and integrations for cyber operations teams.
• Build and deploy agentic systems using modern frameworks like LangGraph, CrewAI, or similar orchestration tools.
• Create custom tools and integrations that extend AI capabilities into existing security infrastructure.
• Develop Python applications that leverage multiple AI models and APIs in production
• Work directly with cyber analysts to understand workflows and identify high-impact automation opportunities.
• Experiment with frontier models and techniques, quickly evaluating their operational viability.
• Build robust API integrations connecting AI capabilities to security tooling and data sources.
• Iterate quickly based on user feedback, often shipping multiple improvements daily.
• Document novel approaches and contribute to the team's knowledge base.
• Build and maintain a library of reusable AI components and design patterns.

Skills Requirements:

• 3+ years of software development experience with strong Python proficiency.
• Hands-on experience building production AI applications (not just notebooks or demos).
• Familiarity with modern AI frameworks and tooling (Pydantic AI, LangChain, LlamaIndex, agent frameworks).
• Experience with API development and integration (REST, GraphQL, streaming APIs).
• Understanding of prompt engineering, structured outputs, and tool/function calling.
• Strong debugging skills and ability to troubleshoot non-deterministic AI behavior.
• Git proficiency and collaborative development experience.
• Self-directed learner who thrives in ambiguity and rapidly evolving technology.
• Genuine enthusiasm for exploring what's possible at the frontier of AI capabilities.

Nice to Haves:

• Experience with agentic workflows and multi-agent orchestration.
• Background in cybersecurity or understanding of security operations workflows.
• Contributions to open-source AI projects or public demos/repositories.
• Experience with retrieval systems (RAG, vector databases, semantic search).
• Knowledge of AI engineering best practices (evals, observability, deployment patterns).
• Familiarity with multiple AI providers (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, open-weight models).
• Experience building IDE extensions, CLI tools, or browser extensions with AI features.
• Understanding of data pipelines and structured/unstructured data handling.

Location: Visionist HQ

$160k-$200k (Annually)*

• The range displayed above is a likely salary range for this position. This is not, however, a guarantee of compensation or salary. Rather, salary will be set based on experience, geographic location and possible contractual requirements and could fall outside of this range.*
  

*Akina is a Woman Owned, Service Disabled, Veteran Owned, Small Business, looking for talented and ambitious individuals to join our team. We offer a generous compensation package that includes 24 days PTO accrued annually and 11 federal holidays. Our 401k is 100% vested on your start date and the company makes a direct contribution worth 10% of your salary. Akina covers 100% of healthcare costs for employees and 50% toward dependents. We offer educational assistance towards college classes and will cover costs associated with job related training and certifications Akina is committed to excellence and creating innovative and flexible solutions for our clients. We are a small company with an open ear to our employees' needs in order to attract and retain quality talent that enables our customer's mission.

We are an equal employment opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

www.akina-inc.com/careers